JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association
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Multicenter Study Observational Study
Airway-Occluding Mucus Plugs and Mortality in Patients With Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.
Airway mucus plugs are common in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD); however, the association of airway mucus plugging and mortality in patients with COPD is unknown. ⋯ In participants with COPD, the presence of mucus plugs that obstructed medium- to large-sized airways was associated with higher all-cause mortality compared with patients without mucus plugging on chest CT scans.